Review: Crash (2005)

3.5
Written and Directed by: Paul Haggis

Don Cheadle .... Graham
Sandra Bullock .... Jean
Thandie Newton .... Christine
Brandon Frasier .... Rick
Mat Dillon .... Officer Ryan
Ryan Phillippe .... Officer Hanson

Genre: Drama, Thriller
Language: English
US Premiere: May 6, 2005
US Rating: Rated R for language, sexual content and some violence.

Everybody's guilty of discrimination. We all have our own judgement in many things but can we really control such? Are we all free to judge everyone? Or is it's just an inate trait that normal people have. Does color matter to all? Should it be?

As a (possbile) contender for the Oscar night on March 7 (Manila Time), "Crash" caught my attention as it briefly displays the day-to-day lives of people discriminated in one way or another. It's a movie of different stories of the lives of Americans intertwined in one tale about one's worth, one's prejudice and the one's definition of respect.

PLOT
"Crash" tells the story of how people handle the issue of racism, bigotry and xenophobia not only in a particular region or by a particular race in the society. These three heavry words are the main focus in the film. It informs the viewers that everyone's discriminated and that we can find a discriminating factor in everyone of us. In the movie, it asks people whether we should or we shouldn't discriminate at all. The maserpiece shows people the gravity of of this global problem. It affect people's lives and lifestyle. Everyday (especially in the multi-cultural America), people deal with this for ages. And in many parts of the world, we are all guilty of this.

The charaters in the film aren't directly related with each other but with the circumstances that they face, they have no idea how small the world is. A bigot may be oppressing a particular group while he's being discriminated by another bigot. This is how we may the game without us realizing the fact that we are all connected.

ACTING
Superb acting by Don Cheadle, Mat Dillon and Thandie Newton. Good casting that would surely win an Oscar nomination.

LESSON
How often do we discriminate? Once we were opppressed, we look for an outlet - a subject (we think), who's weaker or incompetent. We pass the oppression we experience to others resulting to a medley of oppression of mandkind. We ruthlessly manipulate people with our power, might and money to win the respect that was taken away from us by others. We're all guilty of this act as we do this most of the time. We pin down people by their color, their race, their features or by their status in life. We label people, tag them with foul names insulting their character and race.

Many should learn from this. It's a moral teaching to the viewers. It's all about kharma, it's all about the golden rule. It's that simple. Let's live harmoniousmly.

RECOMMENDATION
I recommend this movie to all. We can all relate to this movie. It's a masterpiece about us, the society who's very opinionated about people's color, race and culture. We all have to see this film. It's an important film of the 21st century. ¿?